


shambles

by thethrillof



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Regret, Suicidal Ideation, dream realm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:15:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25591177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thethrillof/pseuds/thethrillof
Summary: Hollow makes their way through a somewhat melancholy dream.Maybe.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 60





	shambles

This is a dream. It can be nothing else.

They’ve seen the empty space which held the White Palace; none will never walk its halls again.

And yet, here they stand. Unfitting, with their cape and pauldrons and cloak-dye long gone, a smudge of faded green-brown and black among silver-white.

When nothing occurs through their waiting, Hollow begins to walk.

They pass retainers who murmur incomprehensible fragments of words. These do not acknowledge them, and are quickly left behind.

Circular blades hang in the air, suspended by nothing. They are in less pain here, and so it is easy to dip or edge around them.

The corridors are winding; though they lack a clear map of the Palace, memories bent and broken by the Old Light, they make enough nonsensically impractical turns that they are more reassured than unsettled. Still only a dream, which they have been forced to do at rest since being taken from the Temple. A lonely, but not terribly painful, dream. A rarity, to have one with their body no more or less intact as it is in waking. Most began with their body changed, as something gentle and simple, only to warp into cruel memories of their first rotting, or their body falling apart inch by inch before succumbing to their shade.

When bundles of thorns appear in the distance, they nearly turn away to find another route for their aimless wandering, but the vines unwind and fall from each other. The pattern they land in build them a perfect path, so long as they continue to walk carefully.

They do.

They fall into a familiar haze. They have a goal, though ordered by none: keep moving. Do not turn back. Avoid the points sharper than any blade. Easy, simple and thoughtless.

The hall of thorns gradually shifts, burrowing into walls fading into dull greys and browns. There is nothing to tell how long it is before they realize they’re walking through a narrow tunnel. Outside, perhaps. It’s the same shade as the Ancient Basin’s walls.

_“You should not be here.”_

Before they reach the end, Father’s voice slips into their mind.

There is no trace of reproach or command, yet they jerk to a complete halt and straighten with attempted grace. 

For a time, nothing happens.

They remember where they are--rather, where they are not.

It takes longer to gather themselves. To stiffly continue forward. To brace for more.

At the end of the tunnel, just inside the room, the Pale King stands.

He is not looking at them.

He does not quite face away. His eyes are aimed at the wall to their left. He is poised, and utterly silent.

Hollow tips their head up, averting their gaze. A terrible buzzing fills their chest. Do not ignore him, he is father-creator, but he is not real, but they wish he was. 

The room is nearly empty. A dull mimic of the throne room they once often stood in, waiting by his side. The space near the throne is clouded by Void.

With so little to see, their stare quickly falls back to him.

The silence is thick. Heavy. They, of course, are unable break it.

They find it is a long while before he does.

_“You have yet to forget. Though your thoughts are unclear to Us…to me…the power of them is undeniable.”_

They can barely remember the last time they saw him. The journey to the Temple, side-by-side. His glow gave the Temple an unnatural sheen, barely capable of being reflected. They recall the spirit of his last orders, if not the exact words chosen. They had not glanced his way, though the urge had been there, one final glimpse of what they had been protecting.

They had not looked back.

They should have.

They distantly wonder if this is a sign of Her, attempting to return. She had tried to sway and torment them with memories of Father, but never got him quite right.

On closer examination, this is not quite right.

His hands are hidden, but ages of careful watching for cues are not forgotten, and they are clearly trembling beneath his robes. His head slowly bows, though he is not in his workshop, exhausted or working on endless projects on his desk. His glow is far too dim.

They have stepped forward, into the room. Closer, without thought, as mindless as they were supposed to be.

There is a crack across his mask. Their gaze slides away when they attempt to observe it properly. A personal weakness, not wishing to see him in shambles, or memory of his own spellwork, where he would attempt to sweep away flaws. They have no way to tell.

_“Why—”_

He cuts off.

This is not a pause, nor for gathering well-made thoughts. It brings forth the idea of something fracturing.

They take a single step nearer.

The air is cloying and oppressive. If this is Void, this is not of their Sibling’s, which rests and caresses rather than smothering and lashing. Regret and ruin whispers around their body with every step.

He does not flee. He does not look up to meet their gaze. He is level with the bottom edge of their cloak, cut by their sister for a chance to grow cleanly once more.

 _“Why,”_ and each word sounds torn from his mind, not murmured into theirs, _“did you not tell me sooner?”_

He is staring at the scars across their chest. Most have healed to thin lines. The one in the center never will entirely, a space where one could dip a hand into completely and perhaps come away with a smear of Void. They've learned to cope with it, and to rest when they should.

 _“A foolish question,”_ he continues. _“You could not. The means were taken from you. Were never given. We—I would not have paid attention, had you made an attempt.”_

This admission should hurt.

Should. Doesn't.

It settles upon them, heavy and cool.

When the one their sister called 'ghost' returned, a true Knight, the ruined Hollow Knight had been certain they would dispose of them. Why? For vengeance, or for being imperfect, or for no longer being necessary. Any or all. They had not attempted to parse their own thoughts, as they were not meant to have them. They were nearly relieved that they would finally be destroyed. 

And then, later, they discovered it was not the truth. That even if unhappiness was caused by their own hand, their Siblings, either one, would not want to discard them. That they loved and hoped and wanted to protect them. And, even further, to realize it was something mutual. 

This is similar. A terrible relief; a sense of the inevitable.

And, now that they hold experience, a nagging expectation that it is not so simple.

And it is not. The King is dead. He would never have relinquished Hallownest to anyone, a Vessel least of all.

_“The consequences would have been disastrous. What I would have done…what I could have done…”_

This is a dream. Uninfluenced by Her, no longer a sweet and burning trap, merely memory and wishes and other things, random scraps of the world tangled together.

_“I told myself it did not matter. I told myself…”_

He is still not looking at them.

_“…many things. Again, and again. No cost too great. A terrible curse upon your shoulders. A terrible curse upon my children.”_

Their claws clench into a fist. The Pale King’s gaze snaps to it.

_“And in the end, it was useless. I knew more than I allowed myself to consider. I let you terribly suffer for a pointless venture. I fell within ash and ruin, as I did once before, and I am not to be reborn. I do not desire it. I do not deserve it.”_

Memory and wishes and pieces of other things.

While they do not know what they wish, they know what they do not: the Pale King standing, faded, limp, speaking apologies and not even looking to them. Distant and miserable, as he had been in life.

It falls to the Hollow Knight--Hollow, sibling, survivor--to correct this.

He stands straight when they stride the last few steps to stand before him, still staring at their fist. An unfortunate habit that the map-shopkeepers tell them, when they wait for their sibling in Dirtmouth, often seems like they’re prepared to strike. Perhaps this is what it seems to be on the outside now.

They know, suddenly as a blow to their own mask, that he would allow it. He would allow them to tear their Nail from their back and cut him in twain, and he would not dodge.

It is not that they resist, but the urge to fall to to their knee, to swear themselves loyal and apologize in the only way they can. This would only be a repeat of times before, with the barest variation. This dream may be the closest thing to a chance they will ever have again. 

They do not bow. Instead, they reach forward, curling their remaining hand around the side of his head. Their little sibling enjoys that, when they don't pat their head on the top. They cannot do this here, as he has too many points.

He freezes. He must breathe, as they do not. They don't think he is.

 _ **“Why,”**_ he says again.

This word is flung to them like a spear, nearly stinging. They are unmoved.

_“You have not forgotten me. You could.”_

His head tilts to the side. To rest in their palm.

_“Easily. As slowly or as quickly as you so wish. My Soul is weak. My mask is damaged. It does not give enough protection.”_

A perfect fit for one of their claws to sink into, to wrench open. They have imagined it more than once with their own, so vividly they lie on their arm at night, to numb it and give time to resist their whirlwind thoughts.

_“A final enemy. A useless, old god of Hallownest.”_

Finally, an order, true and clear:

_“Hollow Knight, kill me.”_

To be killed. To be discarded. They had not feared this for themselves, once they knew what was at stake, but for Hallownest.

They had failed their purpose.

They realized, in steps and with great reluctance, that the Pale King had failed his purpose just the same. First, they thought, in choosing them. Then, accepting had failed the Vessels who had been left behind as much as they had.

He had failed Hallownest and all he had loved, and all who loved him. They know this in every word of the survivors, in the nothingness in the Ancient Basin, in the shrines surrounded by dead made for him.

No. No more of this. They will not perpetuate the terrible plans that have only failed. 

_“You must.”_

They do not kneel, but he is…small. Smaller than they remember.

They pull their hand away only to be certain they don’t collapse, and sit upon the floor. They are finally, truly face-to-face, as they have never been before.

He does not pull away when they again reach out. Some instinct has them curl one claw inward and stroke along the edge of his face, away from the fissure.

It nearly mirrors theirs.

 _“I do not understand your thoughts,”_ he says quietly. _“I wish to. I should have. I_ now _should. Is it loyalty? Is it mercy? Is it a torment, from you, keeping me here when I have no continued function? Or are these cruel desires of my dying mind for something I did not allow?”_

The inside of their chest twists.

They pity him, and they love him.

They wish they can tell him either, but they are struck silent in even dreams.

_“…I…”_

They tip their head forward, tapping against his, as they do with Hornet and the Knight.

The Pale King breaks.

Figuratively and literally. He crashes against them, legs giving out, and his shell splits and fragments into nothing but pure white with a cry of exhaustion and agony and sorrow, slamming into their thoughts, mingling with their own.

_“It's too late. It's lifetimes too late. But, child, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”_

They jolt awake in their hammock.

Their body flickers bright with more Soul than they went to rest with.


End file.
